I remember that in one of the interviews doberlec (i think it was) said that you can transform into your pet monkey, and that this monkey can jump and crawl into small spaces (through a window for example). So hmm, if they've restricted jumping to hotspots it would mean you can only transform into the pet monkey at hotspots too?

Alright there seems to be some mixup on the different degrees of freedom in the game, so here are the details:

Monkey: The monkey is very much like the Nautilus spell in Risen 1. You can transform into the monkey and control him at any time you want as long as you have learned the skill to do it. Whereas the Nautilus was a very passive creature, the monkey can not only pass through smaller holes but he can also loot items, activate levers/buttons and open chests. Some houses have windows which are not guarded so you can just stand in front of the window, activate your "pocket-monkey" and you can sneak into the room. You also have to be careful though: NPCs will follow the monkey when you obviously enter a building by running across them. If you get caught stealing with the monkey, NPCs will attack you and they can also kill you. If you monkey gets killed, you will be taken back to your character and you loose the items which the monkey had in its pockets. So it's not an overpowered skill and it also has a penalty if you don't take care of your monkey.